Can't Beat the Chemistry Read online

  Before I turn the engine over, I twist to face her and give her one last chance. ‘You really want to do this?’

  She blinks, long inky lashes dropping once, twice and … is that a flash of indecision? Come on, MJ, give in, just this once. But then her shoulders pull back and …

  ‘This make-up test could decide if you pass or fail your chemistry unit.’ The crossed arms over her bottle-green armour signal the end of this conversation.

  I suck in a deep breath and throw the station wagon into reverse. The next 48 hours could well be the longest of my life.

  ***

  Other than the car’s wheezing engine on the highway, the cabin is silent; my sharp-shooting tutor remains strangely quiet. I glance her way. Back straight as though the fibres of her blazer are glued to the seat, she’s staring out the windscreen. I’ve only really gotten to know the little hedgehog over the past few weeks but it’s plenty long enough to know a silent MJ is as rare as a talented X-Factor boy band. It’s not long before the silence takes a sharp turn for awkward.

  ‘Okay if I put on some music?’

  A shrug. Yeah, this is gonna be a long two hours.

  I’ve set my mobile to shuffle. First track, second bar, the ropes pulling at my shoulders start to ease. When I flick my gaze MJ’s way, her face is in full expressive mode, nose scrunched up like she’s walked into a fish market on a 35-degree day. She lifts a brow in question.

  ‘Phil Collins. In the Air Tonight.’

  There’s no response from the passenger seat so I explain. ‘Famous eighties drummer and singer for Genesis before he went out on his own.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Seriously? You’ve never even heard your parents play any of this stuff?’

  ‘My parents lean towards classical.’

  No surprise there. ‘And what do you lean towards?’

  She shifts in her seat. ‘Classical.’

  ‘What, like while you study or when you kick back?’

  She shrugs, pulls the edges of her blazer closer together, and I’m thinking this girl doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘kick back’.

  I hand her my phone. ‘TSFH faves playlist.’

  She frowns but follows my instructions. Next Cannon in D Minor blasts from the speakers and her eyes chew up her face.

  ‘What on earth is this?’

  ‘Two Steps From Hell.’

  Her eyes grow larger, if that’s even possible. ‘Two steps from who?’

  ‘They’re a trailer music production duo.’

  ‘Trailer as in park?’

  I ignore the note of snark in her words. ‘Trailer as in movie. They write music for movie trailers.’

  ‘Why would you listen to movie trailer music?’ The incredulity in her voice is half insult and half confusion.

  ‘Because it’s damn brilliant! And awesome to drum to.’ Not that I’d expect her to know the difference between a good and bad drum song. ‘It’s also the closest to classical I’ve got.’

  She snorts. ‘What, like Mozart on speed?’ But then the brass and wind sections race into the first crescendo and she tilts her head, listens. I hide my smile, thumbs keeping time on the steering wheel as the drums go off at the halfway mark. When I sneak another glance her way, her brow has stopped impersonating a sheet of corrugated iron.

  ‘My dad sometimes listens to jazz,’ she says as she reaches into her messenger bag and pulls out a muesli bar. ‘Nina Simone. Nora Jones. But Mum’s all about classical, all about stimulating the brain.’ That last bit comes out with an edge, but when I catch MJ’s eye looking for an explanation, she drops her gaze to the muesli bar in her lap.

  ‘Is that lunch?’

  A nod. She’s produced more than the odd muesli bar during tutoring sessions but for lunch? ‘I’ve got a peanut butter sandwich in the back if you’re hungry.’

  She palms the muesli bar, teeth working her lower lip. ‘Thanks, but I often skip lunch so this’ll be all right.’

  Yeah, I don’t buy it. It’s that little jut of her chin that gives her away.

  ‘You sure? Cause I’ve already eaten.’ I pray my empty stomach keeps my own lie quiet. ‘And I’d really like to get stuck into the bag of chips I’ve stashed with the sandwich.’ That, at least, is true.

  MJ glances at the oat bar again, then up at me. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you from your junk food addiction.’

  And there’s the snark. Eyes focused on the road, I smile. This MJ I can deal with.

  I reach behind me and pull my backpack between the front seats. ‘Help yourself. There should be a bottle of water in there as well.’

  MJ doesn’t waste time dropping the muesli bar back into her bag and rummaging through mine. She pulls out the food and bottle of water. The bag of chips crinkles as she tears it open and hands it to me.

  ‘So what’s the name of your band?’ she asks, unwrapping the sandwich.

  ‘My band?’ I sit the chips in my lap. ‘I don’t have a band.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She bites into the sandwich, then it’s only the sound of strings and brass as another TSFH track starts on the stereo.

  ‘But you give lessons,’ she says a moment later.

  ‘Yeah, Monday and Thursday nights. High school kids mostly, some first year uni students, and this one fourth year guy. No sense of rhythm, totally no feel for the music, but determined as hell to learn.’ I fish for some chips. The zing of salt and pepper hits the roof of my mouth.

  ‘And Sandy.’ There’s the tell-tale cap crack as MJ unscrews the water bottle. ‘I heard you had your first lesson.’ It’s a statement but her curious gaze burns question marks into the side of my face.

  ‘Yeah, yesterday after our tutoring session.’

  She takes a mouthful of water. ‘So? Was she any good?’

  I squeeze an eye shut and suck air through my teeth.

  ‘That bad, eh?’

  ‘Let’s just say rhythm isn’t your friend’s friend.’

  MJ winces, then peeks across at me from under raised eyebrows. ‘So it wasn’t … awkward or anything?’

  I shrug. ‘A bit, maybe.’ Sandy was a model student, but I could tell her mind wasn’t on the drumming. Talking about it to MJ, though, would be more awkward. Time to change the subject before she starts asking questions for her friend.

  ‘How’s the assignment going?’

  MJ screws the cap back on the bottle and slips it into the centre console holder. ‘Okay, I guess.’

  I cut her a glance. ‘Just okay?’

  ‘Good. I mean, great really.’ She perks up in her seat. ‘We’re looking at genetic editing techniques, CRISPRS technology in particular. You can’t get more interesting than that.’

  Yeah, I don’t know. The only CRISPRS technology I’m interested in is the one sitting in my lap.

  My hand dives back into the chip bag. ‘But?’ I ask, because I can hear the ‘but’ as loudly as the engine of the rev-head hooning past us in the right-hand lane.

  The peanut butter sandwich gone, MJ scrunches the cling wrap in one hand and swivels to face me. ‘You’re a guy, right?’

  My hand freezes in the chip packet. ‘Ah, on last inspection … yeah.’ I glance warily in MJ’s direction, finding quiet calculation circling in moonless midnight like a hungry shark.

  ‘Okay, you may have noticed I’m not all that good at, um, reading people, so how do I tell if, um …’ she takes a breath just as I hold mine, ‘… if a guy is into me?’

  The chips crunch in my fingers. I brave a look at her and damn if the open vulnerability on her face doesn’t punch the breath right out of my lungs.

  I release my handful of chips and grip the steering wheel with both hands. ‘You just, well … know.’

  She huffs. ‘That’s just it. I don’t know!’ She pitches the cling wrap at her
messenger bag. ‘It’d be a lot simpler if guys came with a criteria sheet.’

  Yeah, then she could read the damn thing from top to bottom to get a Distinction.

  ‘I’m guessing we’re talking about your assignment partner here?’

  A nod. ‘Jason. We’re meeting twice a week, and the project itself is progressing nicely, but where Jason and I are concerned …’ She sighs. ‘I don’t know what to think, what I’m meant to look for, you know … indicators of interest, that sort of thing.’

  Indicators of interest? ‘Look, guys aren’t all that complicated, and really not that subtle. If we like someone they usually know.’

  ‘Usually, but not always.’

  The shakiness of those words draws my gaze her way. She’s curled in on herself, all spikes retracted, her usual confidence blunted by her cluelessness. Guess now I know where her deficiencies lie. I’m tempted to have a dig at her, but seeing her like this tugs at something in my chest.

  I sigh and reach into the bag of chips again. ‘If he’s into you, he’ll try to get into your personal space, find excuses to touch you, on your shoulder, your hand.’ I pop a chip in my mouth and flick her a glance. Her brow is back to imitating corrugated iron. Probably analysing her last study session with the guy.

  ‘He’ll also be real attentive, hang on your every word, that sort of—what are you doing?’

  She’s rummaging around in her messenger bag, pulling out a—you’ve got to be kidding me!

  ‘Will you put that away!’ I make a grab for the notebook and pen she’s produced, but she’s too quick and pulls them out of my reach.

  I shake my head. ‘This isn’t the kind of thing you can study for, MJ.’

  ‘Why not? Attraction is a science. Inexact maybe, but still a science.’

  ‘You’re something else, you know that?’ I don’t know this Jason guy she’s all in a tangle for, but I’m feeling for him. Man, am I feeling for him.

  ‘Personal space, attentiveness. Got it.’ She peers up from her scribbling. ‘What else?’

  I take a deep breath. No point in fighting this. Might as well just roll with it. ‘Compliments.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘He might mention how much he likes talking to you, how your shirt brings out the colour of your eyes.’ How your note-taking technique excites him almost as much as a brain dissection.

  ‘Sorry?’

  Please tell me I didn’t just say that out loud. I sneak a peek at her face but she doesn’t look pissed off, just distracted.

  ‘I missed that last bit. Something about eyes?’ She reaches a hand into the chip bag in my lap, pulls out a handful and looks up at me.

  ‘He might say something about your eyes,’ I tell her. ‘Guys notice eyes.’

  She snorts around a mouthful of chips. ‘Among other things.’ Out of the corner of my eye I see her look down at her chest, then cock a haughty brow at me.

  ‘Okay then, guys worth your time notice eyes, and you’ve got knockout eyes, MJ.’

  When I glance her way, those very eyes stare at me, wide and unblinking.

  I clear my throat—must have a bit of salt and pepper seasoning stuck at the back—and reach for the water bottle. ‘Speaking of eyes, watch his. If he’s watching you all the time, sneaking glances: dead giveaway. And if you catch him eyeing off your mouth, bingo.’ I take a gulp from the bottle, register traces of peanut butter.

  Peanut butter from the sandwich MJ just ate.

  Gaze on autopilot, it zeroes in on MJ’s lips. Like her eyes, they’re … striking, a cymbal clash of vivid red.

  ‘Because that means he wants to kiss me?’

  I down another gulp of water and force my attention back on the traffic. ‘Means he’s at least thinking about it, yeah.’

  ‘How predictable.’ I don’t need to look to know there’s a nose twitch in her reply.

  ‘Told you. Guys aren’t that subtle. You’ll know. Even if he’s on the shy and reserved side, you’ll know because he’ll show an interest in your life, make excuses to spend time with you, come up with ways to hang out together.’

  ‘Excuses to hang out together …’ She’s busy scribbling in her notebook again, and I fight the urge to bang my head against the steering wheel.

  ‘What makes this Jason guy so special that he’s worth taking notes for?’

  The pen stops moving across the page and her face slackens with the same look Theo gets when he talks about exhibiting at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art one day.

  ‘Jason McNeil is perfect. He’s everything I want in a guy,’ she says, staring off into a future somewhere beyond the windscreen. ‘Off the scale intelligent, efficient, driven.’

  For real? Most girls would sprout a list like ‘funny, caring, donates to the RSPCA’. But not MJ. She’s hot for a guy likely to do a profit and loss analysis on every bunch of flowers he buys her.

  ‘And all this makes him perfect for you because …?’

  Her sigh fills the car with her exasperation. ‘A guy like that will push me to reach my full potential.’

  I take my eyes off the road to look at her, and I see all the things she admires in her assignment partner: off-the-scale intelligence, efficiency, drive. If he’s really all the above, then they’ll get on like two type A peas in a pod. But something rankles.

  I grab one more chip, then hand her the packet. ‘Define “full potential”.’ I have a fair idea of what those two words might mean for the little overachiever, but I want to hear how high she plans to reach. Not so much for the information itself; I’m more interested in how she delivers it—because it might explain why the air around her is suddenly heavy with resignation.

  ‘After I finish my undergrad degree, it’s off to one of Australia’s top medical programs.’

  ‘Eventually specialising in cardiothoracic surgery.’

  She shoots me a surprise-laden glance. ‘Correct.’ She’s staring out of the windscreen again, but the wistfulness from before has slid off her face and pooled in a congealed heap on her lap—replaced by empty resignation.

  She inhales, fills her lungs with resolve. ‘Ten to fifteen years of concentrated effort and iron focus, and I should achieve this goal.’

  Ten to fifteen years. She says the words like they’re weighted.

  Shackled.

  A prison sentence.

  I look over my shoulder to check the blind spot before changing lanes and use the opportunity to run a covert gaze over my complex little passenger. Prickly and standoffish, that’s what a first and undiscerning glance reveals about MJ. But if you brave the initial discomfort and peer closer, you uncover a guarded vulnerability hiding just beneath the spikes.

  And damn if I’m not curious what—or who—put it there in the first place.

  MJ

  Highroad On The Highway

  When Luke pulled north onto the highway, I thought I had it all worked out. He’d drive for a bit, make it look like he was all set to make the whole trip home, then suddenly remember he forgot something—like, maybe, his chemistry notes—and pull off at the nearest exit. So when we zoom past exit after exit I start to squirm in my seat.

  I grab the water from the centre console and take a long swallow but stop short of draining the bottle. As much as I try ignoring it, I can’t rid myself of the gut-grabbing feeling I may need the rest later—to wash down my words when Luke makes me eat them.

  ‘So how much longer?’

  He doesn’t look my way but his lips twitch. ‘I didn’t take you for the “Are we there yet?” type.’

  ‘Just answer the question,’ I say as we leave yet another exit with all its possibilities of returning to Sydney in a cloud of exhaust fumes. I glance at my messenger bag—my near empty messenger bag. He’s driving us all the way home and I don’t even have a change of underwear to my name.

&
nbsp; ‘Almost there.’ Luke stops his incessant thumb drumming on the steering wheel and glances at his watch. ‘Just in time for the bell.’

  And I’ll have to call Theo, ask him to call Mum and Dad and convince them I’m staying with him this weekend, so they don’t freak—wait.

  ‘What bell?’

  He turns my way and lifts his brow in an annoying you’ll see gesture, then takes the next exit off the highway. Less than a minute later the station wagon slows to a stop and I have my answer.

  ‘St Patrick’s River High?’

  Why on earth would he need to stop here? Unless … Oh. Wow. Talk about scraping the bottom of the gig barrel. I’d imagined a pub or club. That, at least, would have given him some muso cred, but this? A high school? Where the performance is most certainly going to be in the school hall? I’d feel sorry for him if I wasn’t basking in the glow of my vindication.

  He cuts the engine and the station wagon splutters into silence. And I can no longer contain my glee. I swivel in my seat to face him.

  ‘You can admit it now, Luke. That the reason you had to come home this weekend is, in fact, a high school gig.’ That’s right, time to come clean, Drummer Boy.

  But he doesn’t look in the least sprung. Or chastised. Or embarrassed. Which sets off those gut-clenching spasms again. I order them into submission and cross my arms, waiting for a confession, a sheepish look at least.

  It doesn’t come.

  He’s the picture of calm. The frustrating guy simply stretches one long arm behind me and grabs his backpack from the rear seat, giving me a nose-full of his deodorant in the process. Gotta say, I pictured him more of a musk kind of guy, but this lemon pie meets pine needles thing he’s got going on works for him.

  ‘We’ll head home shortly. This is just a brief detour.’

  His bicep flexes, then bunches under the cotton of his hoodie as he heaves his backpack into his lap. Maybe I was too quick to judge that bicep bulge. Although I still wouldn’t call it impressive, it’s … noteworthy. I swallow the half-formed snipe about detours and dead ends lodged at the back of my throat.